Author's Note: For des butterfly

Tayuya had turned her back and started to walk away before Kin even registered the pain in her legs. She had just felt something wet and heavy dribbling down her thighs and looked to see two kunai, one for each limb, both deep in the meat about a foot above the knee. Tayuya had very precise aim. Better than hers.

It had been raining for some time, had started hours before their spar, and it was mud that rushed up to meet her as she collapsed to her knees. It wasn't only her legs that hurt- Tayuya had broken at least two of her ribs and blacked one eye before she got tired of the one-sided battle- but the fight had barely gone on for five minutes, far too short a time, so Kin gritted her teeth and pulled.

She managed, just barely, to get one out, but the other was stubborn, and she was tired, and it was raining, and she could just barely see Tayuya now through the seemingly never ending downpour, and she was still walking away, hadn't even acknowledged her victory, and-

"Get back here!" Kin struggled to her feet, only stumbling once. Her vision darkened, but her legs held. Barely. "Get back here! We're not finished yet!"

Tayuya stopped. Then she turned. Though her eyes were the brightest green Kin had ever seen, now they were dark and unreadable. "This fight was over before it started, bitch. You're weak, and not worth my time."

Kin shook. It was partly from the agony in her legs and ribs, and partly from the anger of being dismissed so easily and the humiliation of the same, and maybe just a little from fear, but still she shook. Her grip on the kunai, still dripping her own blood, didn't falter. "You're running back to Orochimaru-sama? Fine, I don't care. Go home, kid. I should've known you were too young to actually know what it means to finish what you started."

Tayuya's face contorted in an all-too familiar expression of complete fury. She pulled another kunai out of her belt, her only one left- the elite bodyguards of Orochimaru were not much for the common weapons- and shifted her feet. "You cunt, I should rip your fucking throat out for that."

"You're welcome to try." Kin didn't really care that what she had said was practically suicide. She was tired of being left behind in the mud, so pathetic that her opponents didn't even bother sticking around to gloat. She hadn't followed Orochimaru just to be discarded as easily as she had been by her family. If she was going to lose- and she was- it wasn't going to happen without Tayuya looking her at least once in the eye.

Tayuya frowned at her words, the scowl momentarily leaving her face. Kin couldn't be sure if it was because of the dizziness from the blood loss or just Tayuya's speed that caused the younger Sound-nin to blur in front of her. When Kin next heard Tayuya's voice, it was behind her. And the next thing she felt was the heat of Tayuya at her back and the sharp edge of a blade at her throat.

"You're an idiot." Tayuya stated the words factually, with none of her usual scorn. "You will never be able to win against me. You're too weak."

Kin didn't let herself flinch, though her shaking increased and her kunai dropped to the dirt. Blood continued to run down her legs, and the ground around her was stained a watery red. "If I'm so weak, why'd you come back?"

Tayuya didn't reply.